Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!bionet!agate!ucbvax!dewey.soe.berkeley.edu!thom
From: thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Cross-linguistic issues in the design of Icons
Message-ID: <30767@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 20 Aug 89 18:36:24 GMT
References: <9268@cs.Buffalo.EDU> <1985@softway.oz> <1989Aug20.005726.27233@utzoo.uucp>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Thom Gillespie)
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley
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In article <1989Aug20.005726.27233@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <1985@softway.oz> gary@softway.oz (Friend of Elvenkind) writes:
>>If you are interested in creating universal icons then you are going to have 
>>to design them with aliens from another planet in mind as your readers.  I
>>have a feeling that for every icon useful to your own culture there will exist
>>an alternate culture which would not understand it.  Can anyone suggest a
>>universal icon?
>
>I think the one for "explosion hazard" is probably fairly universal; you
>have to make some fairly drastic assumptions to make it incomprehensible.

My vote for possible universal icon word be the christian cross. How many
cities around the word do you think do not have one sticking up in the air
somewhere? True universal icons are an impossibility, much as a true universal
language -- same problems.

--Thom